They say a leopard can't change its spots. One particular group of big cats has no intention of doing so. The Smithsburg Leopards continued their mastery of 1A volleyball by sweeping Perryville 25-11, 25-18, 25-22 in the state title match Saturday at Ritchie Coliseum in College Park. Smithsburg has won 13 state crowns including four straight and eight of the last nine. Perryville has appeared in five title tilts with all five resulting in losses to the Leopards.
"Tonight didn't go the way we planned," Perryville coach Matt Borrelli said to open the post-match press conference. "Hats off to Smithsburg. Congratulations to them. They're champions every year for a reason. They play really, really good volleyball. They really don't make a whole lot of errors. They're really fast. I think their offense was just a little bit faster than what we could handle. It seemed like we were getting into position on defense but it was just a little bit too late. Then I think they made a lot of really strong hits against us just because they were a little bit faster. It seemed like we weren't reacting as well when they were hitting off-speed or making tip shots because we were worried about how hard they were hitting. We were kind of playing back a little bit. When they had to hit off-speed or make a tip shot those landed as well. It was very frustrating. I think we're a better team than what we showed. That part is very frustrating. But regardless of the outcome I'm still very proud of this group and what we've been able to accomplish this season." Perryville put up a fight in the third game. The Panthers led 15-14 following a dink by Rebecca Holman. Trailing 20-17, Perryville tallied three straight points including an ace by Alex Leslie to tie it before Smithsburg reeled off three in a row to regain command. "I think we started to get our hits in more and we were just playing better as a team mentally and physically," Perryville senior Brooke Reynolds said. "And when we realized, 'we're in this, we can really do it, how close we were', we never give up. We're a team that refuses to give up." Holman and Bea Muscella each supplied six kills and Reynolds recorded three. Hailey Jones had 14 digs and Jordan Carr posted 18 assists. Jones was asked what the Perryville program needs to do to get to Smithsburg's level. "I just think the intensity level needs to be matched," she said. "I think against other teams that are as good as Smithsburg such as Rising Sun or a team like that, that has that caliber of talent, I feel like our team gets scared sometimes and I feel they they fear the competition more than they should. Because they're just girls. They're the same age we are. They're playing on a varsity team just like we are in high school. They're juniors, seniors, etc. They're just like us. They're nothing special. They're really good but if you really want to win that bad, just put it out there, give it everything you have." Comments are closed.
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